Day 1: In this exercise, you are going to use the
statistical methods to answer this extremely important question!
In addition, you will write up this lab in a "formal" lab
report according to the protocol described in the Lab Report
Requirements sheet.

Before you begin the exercise, develop a hypothesis
related to the problem question at the beginning of this exercise.
You will have to write a detailed, step-by-step procedure since
the procedure included on this sheet is only a summary.

Summary of the Procedure:

Each student group will measure the mass of a sample of 10 M &
M Peanuts of the same color (which have been dipped in milk chocolate
and covered with a thin candy shell) to the nearest hundredth of a
gram. [The first thing you are going to have to do is devised a
method to take an unbiased, representative sample from the
population of peanuts you have been given. This method should be
included in your procedure.](note data for this part of the lab
is provided at
http://www.grochbiology.org/StatisticsData.xls)

Express your results in a table. Calculate
the mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation from the mean
(+/- 1 and +/- 2 deviations) and the standard error (see Statistic
PPT) of the mean for your sample. At the conclusion of
the activity, do the appropriate thing with your population!!! (you
can use Excel to do your calculations).

Express the masses of the peanuts of the class in a frequency
distribution table *** and a frequency distribution graph***.
These will include all peanuts without regard to color. (Teacher will
demonstrate how to do mean, variance, stdev in Excel)

Class data provided below (link to sample
data).. Using Excel, 0btain the mean and variance from three
other student groups in the class who had different colored peanuts.
Construct a table for this data that includes your own data.
Apply the t test (see Statistics PPT) to compare each of these
populations to your own. Be sure to include all the required
elements of the t test. (This part of the lab report,
also in the results section of your lab report, will be completed
after you have received instruction on the t test.)
Calculations may be written by hand. Also do a Chi-Square of the
expected colors of skittles versus the actual number counted in
class. (In a bag of Skittles, according to the Skittles website in
2002, the colors were arranged like this; Green: 19.7%, Yellow:
19.5%, Orange: 20.2%, Red: 20%, and Purple: 20.6%.) from
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_percentage_of_each_color_in_a_bag_of_Skittles
and http://www.scientificameriken.com/candy3.asp
)

Day 2: Design your own labs (work in lab groups)

Question: Working in your groups come up with one difference that
can be measured between plain M&M's and Skittles using lab
equipment available in the lab.... (standard lab equipment, balances,
spectrophotometer, you are only limited by what we own and your
imagination). (for example but not limited to: density, volume, light
absorbency, solubility...)

Write up: (35 points)

1) Title (include the independent and dependent variables) 1 point

2) Results include:

copy the raw data with all statistics
included from day 1 (from Excel): include the hand calculation of
standard error of the mean below table (1)